More

Commentary on Genesis 44:18-21,23-29; 45:1-5

We continue the story of Joseph and his brothers. In our reading, large sections have been omitted from the biblical narrative and what immediately follows below is by way of a lead-in to the actual reading.

Still not knowing the real identity of the Pharaoh’s chief minister, the brothers return to their father Jacob with the food Joseph had given them, but without their brother Simeon, who is being held as a hostage until they bring Benjamin with him on their next visit. Joseph has expressly asked to see their youngest brother, although at this stage they do not know the real reason.

With great reluctance—because he has already lost Joseph and Simeon—Jacob agrees to let his youngest and dearest son Benjamin go back with them to Egypt. They have to go because the famine continues and their food has run out.

They are received by Joseph with great pomp and ceremony. When he sees his younger brother, his only full brother by the same mother, Joseph is overcome with emotion and has to leave the hall until he recovers. After this meeting, the brothers are sent home again, laden with food. But unknown to them, Joseph has arranged to have a silver cup hidden in Benjamin’s sack.

While already on their way, servants of Joseph are sent to stop them and accuse the brothers of theft. The brothers are horrified when they find the cup in Benjamin’s sack; now, he will have to stay behind and presumably be severely punished. Knowing their father’s love for Benjamin, the brothers are distraught at this turn of events.

It is at this point that today’s reading begins. Judah, the eldest of the brothers, pleads on behalf of his youngest brother, but even more on behalf of his father who will be heartbroken if Benjamin is not returned home, something the brothers had sworn to Jacob they see to.

This whole passage (we read only a part) is one of the longest speeches in biblical story-telling and marks the turning point in the brothers’ present dealings with Joseph. Judah is the hero of this scene, remarkably retelling the whole story as it has unfolded so far.

He speaks to Joseph with great deference and fear. He uses the language of a subject speaking to a high official. He even uses the expected flattery, saying “you are like Pharaoh himself.” He tells Joseph that, when they left home the first time, there was just their father, who is already very old, and their youngest brother. The father is particularly attached to Benjamin because the only other boy he had by Rachel was Joseph, who, of course, all believe is dead.

Even so, Jacob had to let his brothers bring Benjamin to be seen by Joseph or they would not get any more food which they so badly needed as the famine continued. Now, Benjamin has been arrested because of the cup, presumed stolen by him (found in his sack of food). Judah tells Joseph about the words of Jacob before they left for Egypt with Benjamin:

You know that my wife bore me two sons; one left me, and I said, Surely he has been torn to pieces, and I have never seen him since.

Jacob believed that this was the fate of Joseph because, when the brothers returned home one day without Joseph, they produced his famous coat of many colours saturated with blood. Jacob believed it was Joseph’s blood, the result of being killed by an animal. As told earlier in this story, his coat had actually been dipped in animal blood precisely so that Jacob would reach this conclusion. The reader, of course, knows that Joseph had actually been sold into slavery by his brothers to a group of traders on their way to Egypt. (And the rest, as they say, is history.)

Judah, who is telling Joseph this, knows very well what happened, and he and all his brothers are now consumed in feelings of guilt. Jacob’s final words to his sons had been:

If you take this one [Benjamin] also from me and harm comes to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in sorrow to Sheol.

In verses not included in today’s reading, Judah then offers himself as a slave to Joseph, if only Benjamin can be allowed to return home to his father.

Joseph now can no longer control his feelings. He orders all his retainers out of the audience hall and then, for the first time, reveals his true identity to his brothers, and for the third time in this story, he breaks down into great sobbing:

…so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it.

Joseph then asks about his father, but the brothers are speechless, partly out of sheer astonishment (is it a ghost?) and partly out of fear of vengeance on the part of their wronged brother. But he has already teased them enough, and he reassures them they have nothing to fear. He then tells them to come closer to him. Up to now, they would have had to keep a very respectful distance before such a senior official in the Pharaoh’s court. He now wants to speak with them as family. And far from being angry with them, he shows them that everything that happened was in the providence of God, saying:

…now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.

Another example of God’s writing straight with crooked lines; another example of how good can come out of something which, at the time, could only be seen as evil. There is a lesson here for our lives, too.

There are striking parallels here between Joseph and Jesus. Jesus also was sold and betrayed by brothers in Israel into the hands of a foreign power. He forgave them:

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. (Luke 23:34)

And because of their actions, he became the Saviour of so many.

Like Joseph, Jesus took “the form of a slave”, but went even further in the utter emptying of himself on the cross. As Joseph became rich in money and power, we have become rich, not with money or power, but in love and grace because of the poverty, destitution and sufferings of our Lord.

The Jerusalem Bible makes the following comment:

“This narrative, unlike what has gone before, proceeds without any visible divine intervention and without any new revelation; it is one long lesson: Providence thwarts men’s plots and turns their malice to profit….Betrayed by his brothers, Joseph is rescued by God who makes the betrayal itself serve the divine purpose, for its result—the arrival of Jacob’s sons in Egypt—is the first step in the making of a chosen people. This theme of salvation (“the survival of a numerous people”, Gen 50:20) runs through the whole of the Old Testament to be enriched in the New. Here, as later with the Exodus, we have a preliminary sketch of the Redemption.”

All in all, the story of Joseph is one of the most touching and most human in the whole of the Bible. Next to David, Joseph must be one of the most attractive personalities in the Hebrew Testament. The whole story is well worth reading. The two passages we have in our liturgy do not do justice to the richness of the whole account.

More

Commentary on Matthew 9:18-26

There is a great contrast in the way Matthew tells this double story compared to that told by Mark (Mark 5:21-43). Matthew strips it down to the bare details. The twenty-three verses that Mark needs are reduced here to nine. Matthew makes no mention of the large crowd that was following Jesus, only that his disciples are present. He concentrates on Jesus and on what Jesus does and says.

A synagogue official approaches Jesus and says that his daughter has just died. He is in fact the head of the synagogue, and in Mark and Luke we learn that his name is Jairus. In Mark’s version, the girl is seriously ill and dies only later in the story. The man says to Jesus:

…come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.

It is an extraordinary act of faith in the power of Jesus. Up to this he had not brought anyone back from the dead.

As Jesus and his disciples were on the way to the house, a woman who had suffered from a bleeding problem for twelve years unobtrusively touched the hem of Jesus’ garment.

If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.

Again, we are presented with a deep faith and trust in Jesus’ power.

This was really the only way this unfortunate woman could approach Jesus with other people around. Her bleeding was not only a physical ailment. It also involved ritual uncleanness, and she was not supposed to be in close contact with people. If they had known, they might have done something terrible to her. Nor, for the same reason, could she approach Jesus openly about her problem, so she quietly touched the hem of his robe. She trusted that that would be enough and she was right.

Jesus, realising she had touched his garment, turned and said kindly:

Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.

And the bleeding stopped instantly.

We now go back to the original story. As Jesus and his disciples approach the house, they find a large crowd of mourners, many of them wailing and weeping in the fashion still common in West, South and East Asia. Jesus tells them all to:

Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.

Hearing this, the crowd laughed at him. Whether the girl was actually dead or was simply in some kind of death-like coma does not really matter. As far as everyone there was concerned, she was dead.

Jesus went into the house, took the girl by the hand and she “got up”. There are overtones of resurrection in the words “got up”.

In both these stories, using the literary device of ‘inclusion’ (one story wrapped inside another), we have a common theme of Jesus as Lord of life. It is Matthew’s way of saying what we read in John:

I am the resurrection and the life. (John 11:25)

That life is to be understood in the fullest possible sense, involving the physical, social, intellectual and spiritual aspects.

In one story, the girl is not only given back her physical life, but is restored to the bosom of her family and all that means. In the other story, not only is the woman’s haemorrhage stopped, but she can be fully reinstated into normal relationships with the people around her. She is in a very real sense made whole again. Let us today pray for Jesus to heal us and make us whole—the wholeness that is holiness, the holiness that is wholeness.

More

Commentary on John 1:35-42

Today we have an introductory encounter between Jesus and his first disciples. The context is somewhat different from that in the other Gospels, and it is a very meaningful passage that describes the revelation of Jesus to Andrew and Peter (in that order).

The passage opens again with the words, “The next day…”. John the Baptist is there with two of his own disciples. Just then, Jesus walked by. This is a common feature of Jesus in the Gospel, and it reminds us that Jesus also walks by us so many times in our ordinary day. Are we aware of that? And how do we respond? As Jesus passed by, John says:

Look, here is the Lamb of God!

Perhaps the disciples had already heard what John had said about the Lamb, and so they began walking after Jesus. They are not yet disciples, but were more moved by a kind of curiosity about this man.

We will be told later in the account that one of the men was Andrew. But who was the other? A tradition likes to think it was John. Very likely it is the ‘Beloved Disciple’—not yet called that because his or her discipleship is just beginning. As such, it could have been anyone. It could be a man or a woman. So why not put oneself there with Andrew and share the experience with him? It makes this passage very meaningful if we do so.

At that point Jesus turned, saw them walking behind him, and asked:

What are you looking for?

It would be good for us to hear Jesus asking that question of us too. We think we are following Jesus in our Christian life, but have we ever felt that we have been asked that fundamental question: “What are you looking for?” And indeed what am I looking for in my life, or from God? It is good to realise that God asks me that question. We often tend to think that it should be the other way round, that we should be asking God what he wants from us. But the answer to the first question is very revealing. Our answers could be very trivial, or very self-centred, or very altruistic. The answer to the question tells me a lot about where I stand with God, with other people, and with myself. If my life depended on it, what would I ask of God? And my life in the fullest sense does depend on it.

How did these two men answer Jesus’ question? They asked him one of their own:

Rabbi (which translated means Teacher), where are you staying?

Now, of course, that can be taken at face value in the sense of asking Jesus where his residence was. But in this Gospel, it has a much deeper meaning. Where does Jesus stay? ‘Stay’ is a key word in John’s Gospel and translates as the Greek verb menein.

Where can Jesus be found? He is not in any one place—he can be found anywhere. Later on, Jesus will tell his disciples that he stays in the Father, and that he also stays in them. Again, we need to reflect on the answer to this question. Where do I think Jesus stays? Where can I find him in my life? In what places, in what people, in what situations? Is he only to be found in the tabernacles of our churches? As we read through the Gospels we will find that Jesus is to be found in many places, some of them quite surprising.

What is Jesus’ answer to their question? He says to them:

Come and see.

It is the only way they will find out. Knowing where Jesus stays is not to be found in theology or catechism books or in listening to theoretical lectures. The only way we can know where Jesus stays is by personal experience of meeting him where he is. That is something which everyone can do, and it is something we need to be doing all the time. The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said it this way:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God…

There is in fact no place, person or situation where he cannot be found.

So the two men went with Jesus and they stayed with him. They went and they saw. What did they see? We are not told, but we do know the outcome of their experience. It was that the experience of staying with Jesus was something that simply had to be shared with others. One of the two men was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. He went to his brother and said:

We have found the Messiah!

They had discovered the true identity of this Jesus. And then Andrew brought his brother to Jesus, who said:

You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas…

Here we have a perfect example of evangelisation. Andrew himself finds Jesus, stays with him, comes to know who he is, and then goes to bring his brother to share the experience. It was another “Come and see” situation and Peter, the fisherman, was hooked! It is also worth noting that Peter, who would become the leader of the new community after Jesus left them, was not called directly by Jesus, but by his brother.

How many people, who could do great things for Jesus and the Kingdom, are waiting for me to bring them to Jesus? I should also reflect with gratitude on the many people who have brought me in so many ways to a deeper personal knowledge of Jesus.

More

Commentary on 1 John 5:5-13

Today’s reading is taken from the Third Part of the Letter—about the source of love and faith. To understand this reading we also need to know that John is speaking in the context of Gnostic teachings which said that the Spirit of God entered into Jesus only at his baptism and left him before his death on the cross. John begins today’s passage by asking:

Who is it who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

He means this not in any triumphalist or dominating way about the world in general, but rather using ‘world’ in the sense of asking who is the one who has the ability to overcome the evil tendencies with which our lives are surrounded. The implication is that it is someone who directly came to grips with the world, not an outsider.

The answer is that it is the one who has total faith in Jesus as the Son of God. Faith in Jesus who not only came through the water of his baptism, but “with the water and the blood”, where ‘blood’ signifies Jesus’ death on the cross. All of this is testified to by the Spirit who, with the testimony of the water and blood which symbolically flowed from the breast of the dead Jesus, form one single witness to the identity and the work of Jesus.

John is reacting to the heretics of his day (especially Cerinthus) who said that Jesus was born only a man and remained so until his baptism. At that time, the Gnostics maintained, the Christ (the Son of God) descended on the human Jesus, but left him before his suffering on the cross—so that it was only the man Jesus who died. According to the New International Version Study Bible:

“Throughout this letter, John has been insisting that Jesus Christ is God as well as man (1:1-4; 4:2; 5:5). He now asserts that it was this God-man Jesus Christ who came into our world, was baptised and died. Jesus was the Son of God not only at his baptism, but also at his death (v 6). This truth is extremely important, because, if Jesus died only as a man, his sacrificial atonement (2:2; 4:10) would not have been sufficient to take away the guilt of man’s sin.”

John, in his Gospel, tells us that when the dead Jesus’ side was pierced:

…at once blood and water came out. (John 19:34)

It is interesting that he then adds a parenthetical which makes more sense in the Gnostic context:

He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth, so that you also may continue to believe. (John 19:35)

In other words, the Person who died was the God-made-man, something denied by the Gnostics.

Today’s passage continues:

There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree.

The Spirit pervades the life and death of Jesus. He was born in the Spirit, baptised in the Spirit and died in the Spirit—the Spirit of God.

The blood and water were the ‘evidence’ for the original eyewitnesses, but they are also the witness for all Christians as the type of the baptism and the sacrificial death of Jesus which are operative in our own lives. For us, it is essential to our understanding of Jesus that it was the incarnate Son of God who died on the cross; otherwise his death would not have had its redemptive and atoning effect.

To believe in Jesus as the Son of God is to accept this testimony as that of God himself. Not to believe in the witness that Jesus has given by his life and death is to make a liar of God. For:

God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

And so:

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

This is not merely a statement to be accepted; it is a reality that can be experienced and should be experienced. And it is in the experience that we know its truth.

In the Gospel, Jesus tells us again and again that he has come to give life to the world, and we know from experience that all those who commit themselves to Jesus and his Gospel experience this life. That life is open to every one of us provided we, in a spirit of total trust and faith, surrender ourselves to Jesus as Lord. But it is not given willy-nilly, nor is it forced on us. We have to open our hearts and allow God’s love and life to flow in.

More

Commentary on Matthew 7:7-12

Today’s readings are about prayer, and specifically, prayer of petition. The Gospel reading sounds marvellous:

Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find…

It seems all I have to do is pray for something and I will get what I ask for. And yet, we all know from experience, that is simply not true. I pray to win the lottery, but don’t even get one of the minor prizes. I pray for the recovery of a person with cancer, but the person dies. What is happening? Is Jesus telling lies? Are there some hidden conditions of which we are not aware?

I believe the answer lies in the second half of the passage. First, Jesus asks whether a father would offer a stone to his son asking for bread, or whether a snake would be offered instead of a fish.

If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

In other words, if we human beings, in spite of our shortcomings, care for the well-being of our children, then surely God, who is all good, will be infinitely more caring. The problem is not that God does not answer our prayers; the difficulty is that we tend to ask for the wrong things. We do not give a child a sharp knife to play with even though, when we refuse to do so, he throws a temper tantrum and gets angry with us. A good parent, of course, will try to give the child something else which satisfies the child’s real need at the moment.

Jesus is saying that God will give “good things” to those who ask. In fact, as Jesus says elsewhere (Matt 6:8), God already knows all our needs so it is not necessary to tell him. Then why pray at all? The purpose of prayer is for us to become more deeply aware of what our real needs are.

The things we ask for in prayer can be very revealing of our relationship with God and with others. It can be very revealing of our values and our wants (which are very different from our needs). The deepest prayer of petition will be to ask God to give us those things which most benefit our long-term well-being, those things which will bring us closer to him and help us to interact in truth and love with those around us. It is a prayer to be the kind of person we ought to be. It is difficult to see that prayer not being answered.

It may be useful for us to look at the prayer of petition of Jesus in the garden and how it was answered. Paul, in the second letter to the Corinthians also shares an experience of petitionary prayer which he made (2 Cor 12:7-10) and the surprising answer that he got.

Today’s Gospel passage ends with the so-called Golden Rule:

In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Note that it is expressed positively rather than negatively and that makes a considerable difference. The negative version can be observed by doing nothing at all—not so the positive version. Although it is a separate saying, it can be linked with what Jesus says about petitionary prayer. If we expect God to be kind and generous to us, surely we are expected to be equally kind and generous to those who come asking our help.

More

Commentary on Deuteronomy 10:12-22

Our reading again comes from the second of the three discourses of Moses which form the major part of Deuteronomy. Today’s passage comes from the last part of the discourse. It is a beautiful call for the people of Israel to be filled with the very spirit of their God.

Moses’ question to the people is:

…what does the Lord your God require of you?

He himself gives the beautiful answer:

Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being.

He tells them that they are living in a world where everything above, on and below the earth belongs to Yahweh and comes from him:

…heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth with all that is in it…

“Heaven of heavens” is a Hebrew superlative meaning the highest of heavens.

Yet, out of all he has made in his mysterious ways, the Lord “set his heart in love on your ancestors alone”.

He chose their ancestors to be his own in a special way. This love extends to their descendants down to the present day.

The sign of their belonging to God is their circumcision, but they must go further and circumcise their hearts and be resistant to the Lord’s call no longer. Circumcision was the outer sign of belonging to God’s people, but that was not enough. The bonding must reach deep down into the heart. It cannot stop at a merely external physical badge; membership brings spiritual obligations with it.

So, Jeremiah says:

Circumcise yourselves to the Lord;
remove the foreskin of your hearts… (Jer 4:4)

The “uncircumcised” heart is closed and unreceptive to God’s grace and guidance. Elsewhere the Scripture speaks also of “uncircumcised” ears (Jer 6:10) which are closed to the voice of God and “uncircumcised” lips, which do not speak well.

Moses then gives a wonderful description of God:

…the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.

So the Israelites must imitate their God in loving the stranger, because they themselves were once strangers in Egypt. Here, God asks them to extend their concern beyond their own people.

Their total allegiance must be to this God. He is the one they must fear and serve; to him they must hold firm; in his name only will they make their oaths. He is the one they must praise, the one who did these great and terrible things of which they themselves were witnesses. This can refer to all the wonders that happened before they left Egypt, the happenings at Mount Sinai and the many other signs of God’s power they experienced in their 40 years of wanderings.

And although their ancestors—Jacob and his family—were only 70 persons when they went down to Egypt (as described at the end of Genesis), their numbers are now as many as “the stars in heaven”, thus fulfilling the promise made so long ago to Abraham when his wife was still barren and he had no heir and no prospect of one. Moses is emphasising that their being God’s chosen people is not just a privilege to be exploited, but a responsibility which calls for even greater accountability.

We are moving now into the spirituality of the prophets. In the earlier times of hardship, the Israelites were more concerned with justice for themselves and looking for the end of a life of suffering. Now, with better times, they can begin to look around them, because with better times—as so often happens—comes social inequality.

The emphasis, too, on loving God is moving from focusing on God alone and the observance of law to a greater sensitivity to the needs of those around us, including the total stranger and the outsider. The Gospel will make it abundantly clear that there can be no love of God which does not include loving other people.

More

Commentary on Haggai 1:15—2:9

In today’s reading, we have another exhortation from the prophet to the returned exiles in Jerusalem. It is a message from God through the mouth of the prophet and directed especially to Zerubbabel, the governor of the city, and Joshua, the high priest. It begins:

In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai…

It is more than a year after the first prophecy—October 17, 520 BC (which we read about yesterday) and the last day of the feast of Tabernacles. It was on this feast that Solomon had dedicated the original Temple (1 Kings 8:1-2). It was also a time to celebrate the summer harvest, though for the returned exiles the crops have been meagre (a sign of God’s displeasure at the people’s reluctance to get to work on the rebuilding of the Temple).

In speaking to Zerubbabel the governor, Joshua the high priest, and the Remnant of Israel, Haggai is to ask them:

Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?

It was possible that some of the older exiles, even including Haggai himself, had actually seen Solomon’s magnificent Temple, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians some 66 years earlier. In any case, others would have heard parents or elders talk nostalgically about its glories. Haggai had asked if any of them had seen “this house” (i.e. the Temple) in its former glory. He was referring to the new building which was seen as a continuation of Solomon’s Temple. And what did they see in the new building? Almost nothing. That is because after the foundations had been laid, no further work had been done

But now Yahweh, through his prophet, urges Zerubbabel, Joshua and all the returned exiles to have courage and get to work on completing the Temple building because Yahweh is with them. David had given his son Solomon similar words of encouragement in the building of his Temple. Haggai is to tell them:

…take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt.

The same God who helped Solomon build his Temple will empower Zerubbabel and the people. Similarly, the Spirit of God had rested on Moses and the 70 elders as they led the people out of Egypt and through the desert.

Then comes a prophecy proper:

For thus says the Lord of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land…

For Haggai, God is the sole master of history. While the prophet is foretelling the disaster which is to introduce the new era, the world is temporarily at peace under the rule of Darius. The imminent worldwide catastrophe and the rebuilding of the Temple will herald the messianic age. From the later period of Ezekiel’s preaching onward, the Temple became, as here, a dominant messianic theme.

The prophet’s words are an announcement of the coming of God’s judgement on the nations—which the fall of Persia to Alexander the Great (333-330 BC) will foreshadow. The Letter to the Hebrews (12:26-27) links this verse to the judgment of the nations at the second coming of Christ. The background for the shaking of the nations here and in subsequent verses is the judgment on Egypt at the Red Sea:

I am about to shake the heavens and the earth and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms; I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations and overthrow the chariots and their riders, and the horses and their riders shall fall, every one by the sword of a comrade.
(Hag 2:21-22)

The prophet continues with the word of Yahweh:

I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with splendor…The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts.

“Splendor” can refer to material splendor, or to the glory and presence of God. The latter connects the glory of the Lord with the cloud that filled the sanctuary. When Christ came to the earthly Temple, God’s presence was evident as never before. When Jesus was brought to the Temple for the first time as an infant to be presented to his Father, he was met by the holy man Simeon who spoke of the Child as:

…a light for revelation to the gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel. (Luke 2:32)

Haggai’s speaking of the future filling of the Temple with glory points ultimately to Christ who will enter it several times during his life—each time making a significant statement about himself and his mission for his Father. Ultimately, though, as he dies on the Cross, the glory will leave the Temple, the veil of the Holy of Holies will be thrown open to reveal an emptiness. From now on, God has a special presence in his new Temple, the Body of his Risen Son.

“The Lord of hosts” says:

The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former…in this place I will give prosperity…

The Temple now has become a focal point of messianic hope, a hope realised in Jesus. It is in this same second Temple of Zerubbabel, though restorations had been made by King Herod, that Jesus will teach. And that is why this temple will enjoy greater glory than Solomon’s Temple because the longed-for Messiah would be present there.

In our own Catholic faith, we have magnificent churches, some of them among the greatest artistic achievements of the human race. And yet, when it comes to glory, they are no whit greater than the straw-roofed hut in some mission station. For the glory comes not from the building, but from the Presence in the tabernacle and from the community, which as the Body of Christ celebrates its Eucharist there. The church building is holy because God’s people make it so and not the other way round. It is only as holy as they are.

More

Commentary on Luke 16:9-15

Yesterday we saw Jesus give the example of a corrupt, but astute manager who took effective steps to guarantee his future employment. Today he goes on to warn us about our own use of material things.

We are to use “dishonest wealth” in such a way that we “make friends” for ourselves (our most important friend being God!). When this approach fails us (as it ultimately will), we hope that a “welcome…into the eternal homes” will be ours. We are reminded of how the crafty steward in the parable ensured his future.

In the mind of Luke, the friends we should be making are the poor and needy, who will be on our side before God’s judgement seat because we had “invested” our wealth in them. As we read in Matthew:

…I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me. (Matt 25:40)

Earlier we saw a good example of a man who had made so much money out of his harvest that he sat back to enjoy the rest of his life—which ended that very night. That is not the way to ‘make friends’ with one’s material goods. In one sense, there is nothing wrong with having a lot of money. Rather, it is how we use those riches that is the question:

Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much…

In other words, if we can be trusted with the material goods that come into our lives, and use them to build the Kingdom of God, to create a more just and equitable society, then we can be trusted with something much greater, to live forever face to face with our God.

If, then, you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?

And again:

…if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?

And that reminds us that the material goods that come into our lives (no matter how they may have been acquired) do not belong absolutely to us. Everything on this earth belongs to all. We are only the stewards of what has come into our possession, and we will be judged on how we make use of it. On our use will depend to a large extent our receiving the one thing that will really become our own, the unending happiness that God wishes us to have in company with him.

That leads obviously to the next warning, that we cannot at the same time give ourselves totally to God and become slaves of money and the material. We saw that in the case of the rich man who wanted to follow Jesus. He was the slave of his possessions and so could not surrender his life to Jesus. Many of us think we can, and we try to compromise but, to give ourselves to God completely, we must become free of the lure of money and the acquisition of material things. It does not mean we do not have money or material things, but what we do have is ultimately used for God’s love and service and the love and service of our brothers and sisters.

On hearing all this, the Pharisees, whom Luke calls “lovers of money”, mocked Jesus for what they felt was unrealistic idealism.

There are many today who would echo their views, but those who have taken Jesus’ words to heart know that what he says is true. We have seen this in the lives of some people in our own time. And sadly, we have also seen the opposite. Some, with all their money, and fame and luxurious living, are missing something precious—the freedom to give and share their whole self with those who are destitute:

…for what is prized by humans is an abomination in the sight of God.

The opposite is also true. On which side do I find myself?

More

Commentary on 1 John 1:5-2:2 Read Fourth day in the Octave of Christmas – Feast of the Holy Innocents – Reading »

More

Commentary on Zephaniah 3:1-2,9-13

Zephaniah reflects a time early in the reign of King Josiah (640-609 BC), before his reforms were fully developed. Zephaniah is very aware of the corruption and injustice prevalent in the Judah of his day. There is a harsh message of judgement, but it is not without a promise and hope, which is reflected in today’s reading. This promise seems to have rested with a just remnant of Israel, who were among the humble, and not including the corrupt and disobedient leaders with whom Zephaniah must have been closely familiar, coming as he did from the ruling class.

The reading begins on an ominous note of warning to an unnamed city. It is generally agreed that it is Jerusalem, seen as representing the whole of Israel. Officials, judges, prophets and priests are all seen as corrupt and continuing to ignore the warnings they have received from God.

But change is on the way when the Lord:

…will change the speech of the peoples
to a pure speech…

They will begin to serve the Lord faithfully. The promise of “pure speech” is a symbol of forgiveness. It also points to a reversal of the curse of Babel, and anticipates Pentecost, when all will speak with the same voice and proclaim the same message (see Is 6:5-7; Gen 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-11). The nations will be converted and there will be a faithful remnant left in Israel. All will obey the same Lord and God.

On that day, the Lord:

…will leave in the midst of you
a people humble and lowly.

This image of a simple and modest people, devoid of all arrogance and pride, has been described as one of the most perfect descriptions of the ‘spirit of poverty’ in the Old Testament. Earlier, the prophet had said:

Seek the Lord, all you humble [Hebrew, anawim] of the land
who do his commands;
seek righteousness, seek humility;
perhaps you may be hidden
on the day of the Lord’s wrath. (Zeph 2:3)

The anawim, the lowly in this world, play a significant role in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments (see Matt 18:1-7). The prophets are aware that it is the poor who are usually the oppressed. They continually call for justice for the weak and lowly and for those in need. In short, the anawim are those Israelites who submit, not passively, but actively, to the will of God. Later, the word anaw or ani will come to represent those who opt to lead lives of material simplicity for the sake of others. We see God himself doing this in the person of the baby Jesus, born in the midst of poverty and deprivation. It is the ideal (not always lived out!) of religious communities through their ‘vow of poverty’.

It is not mainly a question of being economically poor, because where poverty indicates being deprived of what is needed for a life of dignity, it is something to be removed. It is rather the attitude of those who voluntarily have little, and are open to receive everything from God. The word ‘poverty’ formerly implied failure. But now, it will be the condition needed to seek God. After that time, the “people humble and lowly” will mean all those in Israel who hope to find God. The Gospels, especially the Gospel of Luke, will proclaim the happiness (“blessedness”) of the poor (see Luke 6:20). With this ‘poverty’, there necessarily goes a high level of integrity:

…they shall do no wrong
and utter no lies,
nor shall a deceitful tongue
be found in their mouths.

The overall message of both readings today is that it is never too late to start listening to God, and to follow Jesus in his life of simplicity and dedication to the well-being of others.